DC seeks citizen input (YOUR input) on health IT policy. Comment now!

Josh Seidman is in charge of Meaningful Use at the Department of Health and Human Services. (Meaningful Use refers to the guidelines for how providers should use electronic medical records.) He wants input from us – that’s you:

ONC is eager to get as much public feedback as possible on its initial thoughts on a critical element of its strategic plan—empowering consumers to better manage their health through HIT. Can you urge e-patients.net readers to check it out and add their input?

URGE, hear that? Your tax dollars at work, asking what you want.Speak up – do you agree with these objectives? And do you have any suggestions?

Objective A. Engage consumers in federal health IT policy and programs.(My thought: are you kidding? How long have we been waiting for government to listen to us, for healthcare to listen to us?)

Objective B. Accelerate consumer access to electronic health information For instance, should we all have access to the “Blue Button” download tool that’s now available to veterans? 85,000 of them have already done it in the first month.

Objective C. Foster innovation in consumer health IT: The Health 2.0 Developer Challenge produced dozens of innovative tools in jsut a few months – much faster than we’d seen before this creative HHS-driven program was announced. Want more? Got specific ideas?

Objective D. Drive consumer-provider electronic communications. So many providers still resist communicating online, despite evidence from Kaiser, Geisinger, and around the world that it lowers costs and improves consumer satisfaction. If you do (or don’t) want government to promote this, speak up.

Again, this is about health IT. Please go express yourself in the comments there- be an empowered, engaged patient, not just in your own healthcare but in Federal policy. It’s a short post, easy to read.

Saw this thru Suzannah Fox’s tweet. LONG reply left (waiting for moderation). Don’t think I pissed off TOO many groups of people.

Had started reading other replies, but from an e-patient view had to stop because was feeling intimidated by all the initials after everyone’s names. (So, itro’d myself as “Warrior Patient.” I. LIKE. THAT.)

One person can make a real difference and groups of people can be trans-formative.

Patient advocates have been around for decades and one of the most powerful examples of a group that brought about significant change are those of us who worked in the AIDS community almost 20 years ago.

FYI – Actually ONC has been listening to consumers for quite a few years already… Before ARRA and meaningful use and all of the money and new players – 3 years ago ONC stood up a private public non-profit the National eHealth Collaborative.

I actually served on both the governance committee as well as the selection committee of their Board of Directors. The only 2 dedicated seats are for consumers or consumer groups and that came about because there was strong support across the entire spectrum of founders to not merely listen to consumers but put them at the table. http://www.nationalehealth.org/ShowContent.aspx?id=86